Jane drew down a branch and laid the broad cool leaves
against her cheek; releasing it, she moved in the
direction of the house. Her companion followed
with slow step, his head bent. Before they came
to the door Jane drew his attention to a bat that was
sweeping duskily above their heads; she began to speak
with her wonted cheerfulness.

’How I should like Pennyloaf to be here!
I wonder what she’d think of it?’

At the door they bade each other good night.
Sidney took yet a few turns in the garden before entering.
But that it would have seemed to the Pammenters a
crazy proceeding, he would have gladly struck away
over the fields and walked for hours.

CHAPTER XX

A VISION OF NOBLE THINGS

He slept but for an hour or two, and even then with
such disturbance of fitful dreams that he could not
be said to rest. At the earliest sound of movements
in the house he rose and went out into the morning
air. There had fallen a heavy shower just after
sunrise, and the glory of the east was still partly
veiled with uncertain clouds. Heedless of weather-signs,
Sidney strode away at a great pace, urged by his ungovernable
thoughts. His state was that miserable one in
which a man repeats for the thousandth time something
he has said, and torments himself with devising possible
and impossible interpretations thereof. Through
the night he had done nothing but imagine what significance
Jane might have attached to his words about Clara
Hewett. Why had he spoken of Clara at all?
One moment he understood his reasons, and approved
them; the next he was at a loss to account for such
needless revival of a miserable story. How had
Jane interpreted him? And was it right or wrong
to have paused when on the point of confessing that
he loved her?

Rain caught him at a distance from home, and he returned
to breakfast in rather a cheerless plight. He
found that Michael was not feeling quite himself,
and would not rise till midday. Jane had a look
of anxiety, and he fancied she behaved to him with
a constraint hitherto unknown. The fancy was
dispelled, however, when, later in the morning, she
persuaded him to bring out his sketch-book, and suggested
points of view for a drawing of the farm that had
been promised to Mr. Pammenter Himself unable to recover
the tone of calm intimacy which till yesterday had
been natural between them, Sidney found himself studying
the girl, seeking to surprise some proof that she
too was no longer the same, and only affected this
unconsciousness of change. There was, perhaps,
a little less readiness in her eyes to meet his, but
she talked as naturally as ever, and the spontaneousness
of her good-humour was assuredly not feigned.